


Tempest in a Teacup

by tenshinokorin



Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Gen, Teenage Shenanigans, a tricky situation over a pound note, glory of the eighties, no unsolicited concrit please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2596352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenshinokorin/pseuds/tenshinokorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sage gets annoyed with Rowen’s lackadaisical attitude, Rowen breaks Sage’s favorite teacup, hijinks ensue. Mid-series timeline. (Written 2012)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempest in a Teacup

They were out of bowls. That was Rowen's excuse, anyway, flimsy as it seemed when there were in fact _plenty_ of bowls, all of them heaped up dirty in the sink. Rowen's real answer, then, should have been: "We have bowls, I was just a lazy ass and couldn't bother washing one." 

But really, no response would have been completely satisfactory to Sage, not even if every bowl within a ten-mile radius had been reduced to dust. There was nothing in Sage's mind that could excuse his coming in from his morning kata to find Rowen Hashiba standing up at the kitchen counter, nose wedged in a _Star Wars_ novel, noisily eating his fruit loops out of Sage's teacup. 

_Sage's. Teacup._ The plain clay one with black glaze and no handle, dimples set just so to fit his hand. They all knew it was his, they all knew it was sacrosanct. Or at least, Sage had thought they did. He pointed this out to Rowen, with as much restraint as he could muster. "That's my cup," he said, as he had said when he first came in, only sounding a little more aggrieved and less shocked this time.

"C'mon, man," Rowen said, without looking up from a paragraph about blasters and wookies and planets with only one climate, "No biggie. We got tons of mugs. You can use one of those."

_If there are tons of mugs_ , Sage thought, with vehemence, _then why are you using **mine**?_ He did not say it, however. He took a breath, held it, and forced himself to remain calm. Rowen intended no insult. He simply did not understand the depth of his transgression. Sage had endured many such misunderstandings since he and Rowen had been rooming together with the other armor-bearers at Mia's house. Rowen staying up to all hours watching Korean horror movies (and the nightmares that invariably followed). Rowen leaving trails of dirty socks and boxers all over his side of the room (and more often than not, on Sage's as well). Rowen's grating Europop albums, Rowen's posters of dragons and buxom women in metal bikinis, Rowen's videogames with their relentless beeping, Rowen's hair dye leaving a blue stain-ring in the bathtub they shared. 

Rowen was an only child of divorced parents, Rowen was a latchkey kid used to living on his own terms, Rowen had not had a traditional upbringing in a large extended family, as Sage had. 

Sage let his breath out, feeling a fraction more Zen about the matter. It was no use to curse the rain for falling, the wind for blowing, or Rowen from being Rowen. It was the way of things. 

But then Rowen's spoon clanged loudly not once, but twice on the rim of the teacup--the centuries-old teacup from which Sage's ancestors had sipped their genmaicha, the cup bestowed upon him by his grandfather before Sage went forth to battle evil. And Sage of Halo did something that was rarely seen by any but his most worthy enemies. 

He exploded. 

Like the lightning of his element striking from a clear sky, Sage unleashed his annoyance and his indignation in forked bolts of rage, lashing out at Rowen's manners and his habits and his hair, while Rowen stared at him in wind-blown amazement. From there Sage went on to the difficulties of living with someone with no respect for other people's space and their belongings and their priceless family teacups. After that he went on to say he was frankly surprised that the armor of Strata would have selected someone so tone-deaf to the traditions of the samurai, and that was the last blow. 

Something went off behind Rowen's sleepy eyes, something bright and furious and deadly. "What did you just say to me, Date?" His voice was low, even, and full of warning. It was an opportunity for Sage to back down, for the Halo warrior to heed the singing note of alarm from his virtue of Courtesy, for two friends who had fought together and bled together and wept together to mutually de-escalate before all that could be obliterated over harsh words and an old clay cup. 

But Sage was proud, and his family was proud, and it was still his teacup. "I said," he repeated, "That I would think your armor could have chosen a bearer with more respect for tradition." 

It was too far, Sage knew, and it was inexcusable. A better man would have held his tongue, a better man would have braved the insult without flinching. But Sage was young, and though he did not know it, he had as little idea of how to live with others as Rowen did. He had not yet learned the ways in which people who cared about each other could hurt one another over the most trifling of things, but that was soon to change.

"That's what I thought you said," Rowen answered coolly, and in one smooth motion he swept the cup from the counter and onto the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. Milk splashed far and wide over the linoleum, punctuated here and there by the bright circles of fruity cereal rings. With a hard glare and nothing else, Rowen picked up his book and left Sage standing there in the wreckage, his thunder spent. 

Which was where Sai found him, two minutes later, when he came to see what the racket was about. Sage had not moved from the spot. Milk dripped from the bottom cabinets, the puddle's edge threatening the hem of Sage's hakama, and in the middle of it all was a starburst of broken pottery. Sage's face was blank with shock. 

Even without the obvious disaster, Sai knew there had been a fight. It crackled in the air like ozone, still potent. He girded up his proverbial loins and waded right into it, unflinching. Somebody in the house had to be the grown-up, and White Blaze was out in the woods. 

"Goodness gracious, Sage! What happened?" Sai yanked the mop off the hook and set to work, herding the mess into a central pile. 

"Rowen broke my teacup," Sage answered, in distant tones. "It was an antique." 

"Really?" Sai bent down and picked up one of the larger chunks of pottery, and studied it with a little frown. "This cup was?" 

"It was given to me by my grandfather," Sage said, with a hint of passion, two bright spots of color staining his pale cheeks.

"Oh, well," Sai said briskly, pushing the mop around the sludge. "Rowen should have been more careful. But accidents happen." 

"This was no accident," Sage snapped. "He deliberately and intentionally threw it down because I--" Sage caught his tirade before it could fully develop, pursing his mouth shut and swelling a little at the effort of holding back so much force. "I have to go," he said at last, and turned on one tabi-clad heel and marched out of the kitchen. 

Sai had only just gotten the worst of the milk sopped up when Kento wandered in, searching for a late mid-morning snack. "Holy hell, Sai," he said, over the crinkling of rice cracker wrappers, "what happened in here?" 

"A very large and detailed misunderstanding," Sai said, and pushed the mop handle into Kento's empty hand. "Be a love and finish this up, will you?" He jogged a shard of Sage's broken teacup in one palm, a tiny frown appearing between his eyebrows. "I have to call my mum." 

Kento looked from the bag of rice crackers to the mop in the other, and at the not-inconsiderable mess still in the kitchen. "Son of a bitch," he muttered, and put down his snack to do as he had been told. 

 

Rowen slammed the bedroom door as hard as it could go, and there was a flare of dark-blue energy around him as he did so, his armor mistaking his rage for battle-fury. The door shot back into its frame with a noise like a cannon going off, jolting the knob a full inch out of the socket. The impact sent all Rowen's action-figures down in heaps on their shelves. One of the offending posters (Sage had dismissed it as eye-bleeding escapist drivel with only a passing nod to proper female anatomy) popped free of its sticky-tacky and curled limply down on Rowen's unmade bed. 

Rowen took several deep breaths, trying to reign in his anger before he broke anything else. Sage's side of the bedroom was frugal and devoid of knick-knacks or personal items; the only things Rowen would break would be his own. And he'd already done an number on the door, and on Sage's stupid teacup. 

That teacup. Rowen curled his fingers until his nails bit into his palms. He wasn't polluting the stupid thing by using it, it wasn't all that great anyway, and he would have washed it when he was done. He knew Sage liked it, he had just been hungry and it was the next-best thing besides a bowl. Who the fuck cared that much about a stupid old mug, anyway? 

Rowen shoved his hands into his hair and scrunched his face up in frustration. Sage did, obviously. And now Rowen did too, in the same way that the stranger you run over in the street suddenly becomes a defining person in your life. Through his blurry vision he stared at the room, and the clear demarcation of his side and Sage's side. Why had he ever thought it was a good idea for them to share a room? The high of victory and friendship was not so bright now as it had been when they defeated the Netherworld, and it was obvious that the two people sharing that room were as different as daylight and dark. Rowen knew he should have bunked up with Kento. 

Rowen scrubbed an arm across his face, and scowled at the room. So goody two-geta Date Seiji didn't think Rowen had what it took to be a proper samurai in peacetime, did he? Well, Rowen would make him eat those words, and all the other ones, with a nice helping of broken teacup to boot. 

 

"That's what I thought, too." Sai held up the shard of pottery to the light, eyeing the rough exposed bit of clay, and the thickness of the glaze. "But I thought you would know for sure." 

"Wellp, I cleaned the kitchen," Kento announced, coming into the living room. Sai was perched on the arm of the sofa, phone cord wrapped around his middle. "You mind telling me what's up?" 

"Mmm, yes, modern processing," Sai said, tucking the phone more firmly against his chin and waving one hand at Kento in a vague way. "Right." 

"You're welcome," Kento grumbled, and flopped down on the other end of the sofa, one hand in his bag of rice crackers. He munched through them noisily as Sai continued to make noncommittal noises on the phone. 

"Yes. Yes, I will. No Mum, I haven't fought any evil this week. Yes, I will let you know. Mmm, love you too. Bye." Sai hung up the phone with an air of triumph, took a breath to announce his findings, and realized the phone cord was still twisted around him. By the time he disentangled himself his announcement had lost a good bit of gravitas. "So! You know that old mug of Sage's?" 

"Since I just spent half an hour picking it up from the floor, yeah," Kento grumbled, thumbing through an old copy of TV Guide lying on the sofa. "We are total bros, me and that mug. I'm going to ask its sister out to the movies with me next week." 

"Rowen broke it." 

Kento flipped a page and tore open another packet of rice crackers. "Yeah well, I figured somebody had." 

"On purpose." 

"Seriously?" Kento blinked at Sai, and crammed both crackers in his mouth at once. "He didn't show any other signs of being suicidal. Do we need to lock the medicine cabinet and keep him away from sharp things?" 

"Don't be such an arse. They had a perfectly awful row." 

"Japanese, Sai. This isn't _Upstairs Downstairs_." 

Sai punched Kento none-too-gently in the arm. "A fight, you idiot. Sage called Rowen a bunch of names for using his teacup without asking, and Rowen broke it. And the whole thing about the priceless teacup is a bunch of bollocks, and I don't think either of them knows, and something's got to be done before they kill each other." 

"Yeah," Kento looked morosely into his empty cracker bag. "'Cause I don't even know how we'd put out a classified ad for two new armor bearers." 

Sai rolled his eyes. "Just come with me." He rolled off the arm of the sofa and headed for the door. "And make sure you get every single one of those wrappers in the trash can before you do." 

Kento bent down to clear away the mess, muttering in a fair approximation of Sai's accent, "Make sure you pick up all those wrappers, Kento. Be a love and clean the kitchen, Kento. Pip-pip bollocks cuppa hot blithering arse, Kento." 

Sai, still in the doorway, cleared his throat. Kento glanced up just in time to get the full dose of Sai's hairy eyeball before he vanished into the foyer, and by the time they had both piled into the jeep, the sofa was once more tidy. For being a willowy, fluffy sort of thing without his armor on, Sai had a certain way of letting you know just how readily he could slit you right up the middle without so much as batting a single one of his long eyelashes. 

"Where are we going, anyway?" Kento asked, as Sai adjusted the rear-view. 

"The library," Sai answered, backing down the drive. 

Kento hunched down in the seat. "You sure know how to show a boy a good time, Sai." 

"If you're very good," Sai said, carefully maneuvering around Yuli's abandoned skateboard, "We'll stop at the game store on the way home." 

Kento perked up at this news. "And the 7-11 for slushies?" 

Sai shot him an indulgent smile in the mirror. "And slushies." 

 

The meadow behind the house was an island of green serenity, and Sage Date struggled to pull some of that peace into his turbulent thoughts. The mug was broken and done; there was no undoing it. All that remained was for Sage to find the best way to absorb and accept the loss. 

The cup was an ancient, sacred object, and its destruction was a sin. On the other hand, it was equally sinful to cling to such fleeting possessions. In the balance between those two extremes there was a lesson the Universe wished Sage to learn. The brevity of the item only enhanced its value, its breaking was inevitable from the day it was crafted, as death was inevitable at the moment of birth. Perhaps Sage had grown too attached to his cup and to his habits, and the breaking of the cup signified his need to abandon such indolent habits. It sounded reasonable. Sage tried to find the calm in the midst of his philosophy, but the words did not stick. He was mad. Mad at himself, mad at Rowen, mad for the purely visceral pleasure of being mad and staying mad. 

A fly buzzed in his ear and Sage shook his head, unable to maintain his meditation. He unfolded from his zazen pose and fell back onto the grass, staring up at the sky. Why, exactly, did Rowen's actions grate on him so? In battle he was a true fellow samurai, full of honor and skill and wisdom. Of all their elements, Rowen's harmonized with Sage's most closely. And yet Rowen was the black infinity of the night sky, and Sage was the blinding light of the day. Was it truly impossible for them to understand one another? Like yin and yang, must they circle each other endlessly, unable to meet? 

The fly landed squarely on Sage's nose, and he swatted it away with an oath. _Or maybe_ , he thought, _Rowen is just a brat._

Sage rolled up into a sitting position, and started as he came face to stripy face with a large white tiger. 

"White Blaze! How long have you been there?" Sage forgot, as they all often did, that the tiger could not actually talk. Luckily, Ryou could. 

"He was checking to see if you were dead," Ryou said, leaning over White Blaze's shaggy head. "So was I, actually. Aren't you usually done with your kata and having tea by now?" 

_Even Ryou has noticed how complacent I have become_ , Sage thought, brushing grass from his kimono sleeves as he stood. _Clearly, the breaking of the cup was to make me see this_.

"It's been a difficult morning," Sage said, coolly. 

Ryou, still sprawled across the back of his giant tiger, jerked his head back towards the woods. "At least you haven't been playing babysitter all morning." A furtive motion of yellow in the trees caught Ryou's eye. "Yuli, I said put down the beetle and I _meant it_. Mia does not want to see it!" 

"Awww." Yuli emerged from the woods, dejected, his yellow t-shirt daubed with a healthy coating of mud. "But it was sooooo huge!" 

"C'mon," Ryou sat up on White Blaze's back. "Hop on and we'll turn the hose on you before lunch. Your mom'll kill us if we send you home like that." He cocked a bright blue eye at Sage. "You wanna ride?" 

Sage thought he saw a trace of resignation in the tiger's face, and he shook his head. "No thanks. I'll walk." 

"Your loss." Ryou whistled sharply. "C'mon, Yul! Tiger train's a-leavin'." 

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Yuli ran through the grass as fast as his short muddy legs would carry him, and vaulted up behind Ryou. Sage could hear his voice urging the tiger to go faster as he followed them--at a much more thoughtful pace--back to the house. 

 

Sage was prepared for truce by the time he arrived. The door to the bedroom he shared with Rowen was shut, and that was to be expected. The knob dangled limply from its housing, all the evidence that remained of Rowen's temper. Sage rapped his knuckles on the door. "Rowen? Are you there?" 

Silence. Sage could sense Rowen though, just on the other side of the barrier, listening. 

"Rowen," Sage cleared his throat, "While I cannot excuse your actions, I realize now that the cup needed to be broken in order for me to---" 

The loose door-latch turned, and Rowen emerged from the bedroom. Towel knotted around his hips, he was busy drying his shower-damp hair--hair which was an inky shade of black. It was Rowen' natural color, but none of them had ever seen it. 

"...What have you done?" Sage gasped, after a second's shocked silence. 

"I made some changes," Rowen said, far too easily. Behind him, Sage could see the state of the room. Posters gone, bed made, laundry cleared away, shelves devoid of toys and gashapon trinkets. With a pang of unexpected loss, Sage realized Rowen had even peeled off all his glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars. Sage had _liked_ those.

"Since you thought I wasn't taking things seriously enough," Rowen finished. 

Sage's eyes darted from the room to Rowen's face, which was startlingly older and stranger without his usual vivid hair. "I never said that." 

Rowen whipped the towel off his neck in a distinctly belligerent fashion. "Didn't you. You thought it, then. Thought I couldn't be proper and traditional. You know." Rowen's eyes narrowed. "Like you." 

Sage was no longer angry. He was _furious_. "Do you think it's that easy?" he snapped. 

Rowen fisted his hands on his bare hipbones. "I think I ain't heard you say you're sorry!" 

"You broke my cup!" 

"Since when is your stupid cup more important than your friends?" 

"Since now!" 

"No shit!" 

"Fine! 

"Fine!" 

The door slammed for the second time that day, only this time it was in Sage's face. The doorknob fell out. 

 

Lunch was subsequently very awkward. Yuli, forbidden to bring in his beetle to show Mia, instead insisted on describing it to her in long and loving detail. With Kento and Sai absent, and Rowen and Sage shooting eye-daggers at each other over the onigiri, It was pretty much up to Ryou to steer the conversation away from "ginormous mandibles" and onto safer ground. He was, however, extraordinarily bad at it. 

"Soooo!" he said, when Yuli paused to take a bite of his rice ball. Rowen and Sage shifted their glares briefly to him, then back to each other. Mia excused herself before Yuli could continue to extol the virtues of his specimen's segmented legs, and Ryou sank down in his chair and poked an umeboshi pit around the edge of his plate. When he heard Sai and Kento at the door, he practically fled to them. 

"You guys have got to do something," Ryou said, in desperation. "It's turning into World War Three in there." 

"Not to worry," Sai said serenely, as he toed off his shoes. "The cavalry is here." He displayed a book for Ryou to see: a thick, dusty library tome in faded binding, a book that looked like it hadn't been moved off the shelf since 1965. Its yellowed pages were marked in several places with paper scraps. 

Ryou gave it a dubious glance. "You uh... you gonna hit 'em with that?" 

Sai tucked the book to his chest, looking a little miffed. "You just watch." 

Ryou looked to Kento for some kind of assistance, but the warrior of Hardrock just slurped his orange slushie and shrugged. He didn't know what Sai was doing, either. They made an odd parade back to the kitchen. Yuli, lunch finished, had gone out the back door to play with White Blaze in the sunshine. Which left Rowen and Sage alone, no longer even pretending to eat. It was a wonder the flowers on the table didn't wilt with the discomfort of being between them. 

"All right you two," Sai announced, putting the book down on the table hard enough to make the cutlery rattle, "It's time we had some things cleared up around here." 

Rowen glanced down at the peeling gold letters on the spine of Sai's book, and his mouth twitched. _Japanese Pottery from Ancient to Modern_. Although from the age of the book, "Modern" probably meant sometime in the fifties. "Looks like Detective Sai is hot on the trail." 

"Holy Christ, Ro," Kento said, through orange-stained lips. "The hell'd you do to your _hair_?" Sai shot Kento a quelling look, and Kento subsided back into his slushie with a muttered apology. 

"If this is to imply that the cup Rowen broke was a commonplace thing, it is of no use," Sage said, stiffly. "Its age makes it valuable, even though when it was made it was merely--" 

The phone rang. Ryou, already keyed up, sprang for it like a starving cheetah diving for a hare. There was a tense pause in the kitchen as everyone listened to him answer. 

"Koji residence, this is-- Oh, Kimiko-san! Yes, I'll get him." The phone handle hit the tabletop with a muffled clunk. "Sage! It's your mom!" 

Only Rowen was unsurprised at this development. He crossed his arms smugly as Sage excused himself with a murmur, and when Sai shot Rowen a probing look, his only response was an angelic shrug. Sage's conversation with his mother was one-sided, and not wholly audible. Sai tapped an impatient finger on his book, and Rowen fussed over a spot of hair dye on his thumb. Kento's slushie made a death-rattle in his empty cup. 

"I'm sorry, mother," Sage was saying, "But I'm afraid that the cup Grandfather---oh. How did you....? Did he. Well I--" There was a long, meaningful pause, and the sound of Sage steadying himself on the back of the couch. " _What?_ " 

"And here we go," Rowen sang softly, smiling to himself. 

"Rowen," Sai hissed. "What did you do?" 

The archer beamed at him in a way that was fairly alarming. 

"You mean that all this time--" Sage continued, so choked that he was nearly inarticulate. "Yes, mother. Yes, I understand. Thank you for letting me know." The receiver clicked softly in the cradle, and Sage reappeared at the kitchen door, looking pale. "I'm sorry," he said, "but could I ask you three to leave? I'd like to speak to Rowen for a moment." 

The other three warriors shuffled from the kitchen, by varying degrees thwarted and relieved. Sage stood behind his chair for a while, not looking at Rowen, not speaking. "You knew all along, didn't you?" he said, at last. "You knew the teacup wasn't antique." 

Rowen scratched a hand through his freshly-black hair. "I read a dissertation on Tokugawa-era pottery once when I was waitin' for my dad to get outta the shower," he explained. "There was a big section on how to ID replica-ware." 

"My mother told me that Grandfather got it at a rummage sale a few years ago," Sage said, lifting his head. "She said you called her earlier today to tell her it was broken, and asked her to let me know so I wouldn't be upset about it." 

"I did, yeah," Rowen admitted. "It was a stupid thing to lose a friend over, ya know?" 

Sage's throat worked with emotion. "I understand, now. The cup was something I thought had value, but was in fact worthless. But I treated your priceless friendship as though it was worthless. You broke the cup to teach me a lesson." 

"No, I broke the cup because you were being a turd and it pissed me off." Rowen paused, and there was the faint hint of a smile in his eyes. "But your version sounds better." He stood up and extended an arm over the table. "Sorry, man." 

Sage took Rowen's hand, gladly. "No, I'm sorry, Rowen. I should learn to be more adaptable. I never realized how hidebound I was." 

"Eh, well I should be more sensitive. I never realized I was annoying you." 

"It was only annoying sometimes. But while it is nice to have a clean room and all, I did like the stars." Sage laughed with relief. "And please, turn your hair blue again. The black looks awful on you." 

"You're on." Rowen grinned. "Friends?"

"Friends," Sage agreed, and smiled until Rowen reached over the table to hug him, and sent the vase of flowers crashing to the floor with a tremendous noise. 

"Oh crap, they're killin' each other!" Kento burst into the room with Ryou and Sai hot on his heels, only to find a broken vase and two guys determined to not look like they had been hugging two seconds before. 

"S'okay, we're cool, we're cool," Rowen said, as he waved them down. "Just some reunification chaos." 

"Dammit!" Sai exclaimed, putting his book down on the table. "And after all my research, Rowen! You already knew about that sodding cup!" 

"Ah!" Sage said, in understanding. "Of course! Your mother's a potter!" 

"Yes," Sai said, deflated. "I could tell right off the glaze was wrong, but I wanted a book to prove it. I suppose Kento got a slushie out of it, anyway." 

"And your mom might get an order from me anyway," Rowen put in, with a sly look at Sage. "I owe Sage a mug." 

"Well," Ryou said brightly, none too sure of how all these things had been resolved, but glad they were, all the same, "All's well that ends well!" 

Mia, deeming the kitchen to be free of Yuli and beetles, chose that exact moment to come back for the rest of her iced tea. Her gaze went right past the newly-reconciled warriors to the pile of broken china on the floor, and widened in horror. " _My vase!_ "

"Or not," Ryou concluded. 

~o~


End file.
